IAN LC June 20. This crisis must go through to the end: the break of the DC, which will create a left majority in the country and in parliament that is not yet possible through electoral arithmetic, We are not yet prepared to draw a balance-sheet of these elections, both because we frankly did not expect the results and because we still lack all the analytical data. We may nonetheless note that it would be an important verification of the unity achieved through the united slate (which we continue to consider a politically positive and irreversible result) if all the organizations that must share responsibility for the result, whether they like it or not, choose to proceed to a common analysis of it. Here we only want to mention a few points that seem to us important to bear in mind: There is no getting away from recognizing the modest character of the results achieved. But this must not lead us to ignore the Fact of the richness of relations with the masses that we of Lotta Continua, and in various ways the other components of Democrazia Proletaria as well, estabfished in the course of the electoral campaign. This feature of the campaign has no comparison in any other period of the history of the revolutionary left; it can and must immediately consfitute the point of departure for advancing a mass discussion on the political perspecfives of this phase and on the role of revolutionaries, a discussion that is now fully maturing within the movement and which it is no longer possible to avoid. As for the numerical ospect of these election results, we do not intend to underestimate the manner in which a series of factors weighed negatively on Lotta Continua: the exclusion from the head of the slate in all districts; the small number of candidates we got and the refusal to run some of our comrades as condidates; our substantial exclusion from television and rodio broadcasts; the insufficiency of the material resources placed at the disposal of our campaign, and the absurdly "separate" character that was most often imposed on our campaign by the other components of DP. But all these elements come to bear as foctors intensifying the more general tendency which, in lorge part independent of our role, impelled the workers to bloc solidly around the PCI even more than last June 15, a tendency that expressed the will to "overtake" the DC. This was probably underestimated on our part. It was this tendency which cut to the bone the number of our voters among the "spectrum" of workers influenced by our intervention and proposals, and resulted in a real collapse of the previous electoral base of Democrazia Proletaria and in particular of the PDUP. This collapse was probably not unrelated to the desire of a component of the PDUP to "punish" the united list that was imposed against its will. But this is a subject we intend to take up again when we have more documented Facts at our disposal. And, we repeat, we will do so in a frank and unitary confrontation with the other components of Democrazia Proletario, L 16
OGCR More than any other election of the past thirty years, June 20 reflected a growing political and social polarization in the country, whose roots go back to 1968. The two antagonistic closses assembled around the DC on the one hand and the PCI on the other as their fundamental political expressions. The inevitable consequence has been the erosion and crumbling of the so-called minority or intermediary parties.... The DC was able to recover to a greater extent than it had hoped exactly because it was once again considered the only valuable, or relatively valuable, pole by all the exploiting layers, by all those who have something to defend, who have, or think they have, a privileged position, who fear that they would bear the costs of the more or less profound transformations that could have occurred in the event of a victory of the workers parfies. In the context of this generalized offensive, some of the traditional ideological arguments that exert a mystifying influence on some popular layers that have no objective interest in defending the status qua found a certain echo, even though limited. The new success of the PCI, which registered important advances nearly everywhere, even compared with the results of the June 1975 regional elections, is the electoral and parliamentary expression of two convergent phenomena. The first is the growing homogenization
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and political maturation of the working class, with the consequent search for an instrument of political and organizational unification, a sentiment that is felt even among strata that in the past were not politicized or were even under the ideological influence of the class enemy. The second is the tendency, ever more notable, toward a polarization around the working class of brooder toiling strata and considerable sectors of the petty bourgeoisie. It is the simultaneity and extent of these two Factors that explain both the general electoral success of the PCI and its leaps forward in certain striking cases (such as Naples). The PSI, which has historically played the role of moderate force in the worken spectrum (in spite of occasional pseudomaximalist outbursts the tactical character of which was only too clear), inevitably had to pay the price for the radicalization and polarization that the strategy of the center-left had tried for long years to avert. For the rest, the secretary of the PSI himself was compelled to declare, significantly: "If radicalization was characteristic of the election, it must be recognized that this did not help the PSI, just as it has never helped it at any time in the party's history." The DC succeeded in avoiding a further electoral decline and was able to recover, maintaining its position of relative majority. It won a significant vote among the youth, not only as a result of the factors mentioned above, but also because of its considerable efforts to actively organize and mobilize at least a part of the social strata among which it had long since tried to maintain its hegemony through institutional structures and patronage (the effort made through the organization "Comunione e Liberazione" is typical in this regard). The results achieved by the DC are obviously an important point to the advantage of the bourgeoisie. But this observation must not allow us to forget that:
a) In very large measure the recovery of the DC occurred at the expense of formations that over the past thirty years at various moments and in various combinations have constituted integral elements, nearly always needed in parliament, in the formation and maintenance of the ruling political bloc. ...
b) In spite of the decline of the PSI and the stagnation of DP, the front of the formations that are part of the workers movement registered a further advance. All things considered, this remains the most significant aspect of the evolution of the relationship of class forces, which thus continues to be favorable to the working class, even as reflected in the deformed mirror of an election. Why the failure of Democrazia Proletaria The overall results of the list of DP, more modest than had been foreseen even by the most sober forecasts, incontestably represent a failure for the far left as a whole. This is especially true since in some districts of Emilia and Tuscany and in the district of Calabria there were especially notable declines and even in the bastion of Lombardy and. Milan there were slight dips. The limited advances elsewhere (for the most part explainable by the specific characteristics of the situation; for example, the case of Turin, where last year the list was exclusively of AO), the achievement of a quorum in the Milan-Pavia district, and the election of six parliamentary deputies, which is not negligible and can offer new margins for political action, nonetheless do not compersate for the overall failure. Objective factors most probably played the decisive role here. Fundamentally, if must be noted that the acute polarization that occurred in the campaign acted to the disadvantage of DP, some of whose potential voters preferred to give the PCI a boost (this occurred above all in the areas in which the PDUP ran alone in 1975). But unless it wants to accept being placed in the category of the "minor" or "Intermediary" formafions, DP must fully assimilate the meaning of this fact. During times of social and political crisis, a revolufionary formation ought to be aided by the polarization and should grow, not decline. If the contrary occurs, as happened to the DP on June 20, this means that the formation in question was not or did not appear to be capable of fulfilling its tasks, either because it did not emerge as an effectively proletarian force or because if made mistakes that compromised its credibility as an alternative pole to the reformist organizations. The electoral test has in fact furnished new elements with which to analyze the social composition of DP and of the far left more generally. The fact that a not unimportant part of the DP's potential base was attractec to the Partito Radicale (Radical party) is a confirmation of the breadth of the rodicalized petty-bourgeois component on which the far left has been able and will be able to exert an influence, not because of its ability to provide an overall revolutionary strategy, but because of its ability to wage certain consistent democratic battles to which the traditional workers parties either have not committed themselves at all or have done so only belatedly and with constant vacillations. The exodus of a part of the voters of the PDUP - which originated politically from the PSIUP and whose social com-
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ITALY position is proletarian or popular - on the other hand, demonstrates the precariousness of an influence that has been gained not on the basis of clarity but with a large measure of ambiguity. Even more important, in the final analysis, the majority of the people who voted for DP on June 20 are petty bourgeois. A detailed analysis of the breakdown of the vote within district will permit more precise evaluation. Nevertheless, both on the basis of the summary analysis of the vote by area and on the basis of the assumption that a not negligible number of the millions of student voters went with the DP, it follows that only a very modest if not insignificant part of the working class opted for the united list of the for left. There is no doubt that the attitude taken during the labor contract bartles by the PDUP, and to a lesser extent by AO, neither of which contributed at any time or at any level to constructing a real alternative to the bureaucratic leadership in the unions and factory councils, and the incapacity of the far left in general to appear as a credible reference point for all the militants and cadres who were strongly crifical of the official platforms and methods of struggle constituted a very serious obstacle - in the given context, probably a decisive one — to a broadening of the influence of the for left within the working class and to the improvement of its social composition. The situation that has arisen in the student movement during the past year also affected the results of the DP. The uncertainty of strategies and methods, the opportunist oscillations that emerged at the time of the fight against the government-decreed educational reform, and above all the negative conclusion of that fight, contributed to the relative weakening of the movement, which retained its vigor only in some sectors and for a limited period. A visible consequence of this was not only the progressive broadening of the area of influence of the reformists, but also of the audience won by reactionary forces like the DC's Comunione e Liberazione. . .. The manner in which the united list was arrived at and the way the electoral campaign was waged increased the difficulties and probably contributed to the failure that occurred. The absolutely necessary critical and self-critical reflection must be based on the following elements:
a) The initial rejection of the united list by the PDUP, confirmed in Its theoretical line by the last Central Committee session before the elections, and the limited acceptance of the unitary solution on the part of AO made the operation less credible from the very outset. The argument advanced after the accord by the
PDUP and to a lesser extent by AO that the united list represented a device aimed at preventing dispersion of the vote much more than a political convergence worked in the same direction. Moreover, in spite of various attempts, not even the two original components of DP were able to arrive at a common program, thus giving
DP even more the appearance of a formation with little
18 homogeneity. All this had that much greater effect in that the PDUP made by far the preponderant use of the mass media during the campaign.
b) The formation of the slate was carried out in a clearly discriminatory manner, primarily against Lotta Continua but also against other components such as the GCR, with genuine bureaucratic impositions and without a correct application of objective criteria. The same criterion, proclaimed in words by everyone, of the priority of having a "movement" candidacy was applied or ignored according to the convenience of the PDUP or AO, with the result that some meaningful candidacies were rejected while others, much more dubious to judge from the results, were imposed without so much hairsplitting. The agreements reached at the top on preference votes and the competition that inevitably resulted completed the picture. Result: none of the "movement candidates" were elected and only one was able to get a seat, after one of the PDUP leaders stepped down.
c) In nearly all cases, the PDUP and AO rejected any foria of common electoral campaign, as a result of which DP appeared as a formation supported by two, three, and even four campaigns that were anthing but convergent. The rank-and-file campaign organizations, the DP committees, were created only in a very partial way. On this field also the monopolizing will of the PDUP and AO prevailed; in the best of cases, they favored DP committees as instruments for their own process of political and organizational unification.
d) Efforts at programmatic elaboration were undoubtedly made by various formations, and these efforts, together with the discussions that preceded the formation of the united slate, constituted one of the most positive elements of the process now under way within the far left. But these efforts did not give rise to real confrontations and, worse yet, they were reflected in the electoral campaign only in a fragmented and marginal way.
Only several thousand of the readers of the far left daiTies were involved in reading and thinking about the texts, while the hundreds of thousands of voters were not affected.
e) All the components of DP, including the GCR, proved little capable of using language understandable to the broad masses, thus making it more difficult to conduct the indispensable dialogue with the militants and voters of the traditional workers parties. All this seriously compromised the possibility of DP. appearing as a credible pole to mass sectors influenced by the reformist bureaucracy. At least one of the components of DP squarely renounced attempting to win PCI and PSI voters to DP (with the result that in certain areas former PDUP voters were won over by the polemics of the PCI). More generally, there was often a combination between a weak consistency of strategic counterposition and a banal polemic, often waged by the leaders of the organizations, sometimes even incorrect but in any event counterproductive. Political crisis of the bourgeoisie is not overcome The Italian bourgeoisie, like the international bourgeoisie, can rejoice at having escaped the danger of a majority of the workers parties. More concretely, the bourgeoisie can consider it positive — correctly so, from its standpoint - that the DC survived the most difficult test of its history and continues to represent a decisive political instrument, the central element of the future government formula. In this sense, disappointment af the results of June 20, not only among the militants of the for left but also, in a different way, among the militants of the PCI, has an objective base. It is clear that in the period immediately ahead this will create a less favorable general context for relaunching great struggles than was generally thought before June 20. Nevertheless, the objective situation and its trends do not point to any reversal of the trend, nor to any important change. After all, as we have already pointed out, the results of June 20 have revealed a further evolution of the relationship of forces in favor of the working class, even compared with June 15, 1975, which had also registered a very pronounced evolution in this direction. The principal consequence is that no more than in the past does the bourgeoisie command any new government formula that can be put into practice in the short term capable of crystallizing a new ruling political bloc. In parliamentary terms, and even more so in terms of the real relationships in society, the possible choices have not widened but have been narrowed down. Indeed, the center majority no longer exists, nor does a center-right majority that would include the MSI-Destra
Nazionale. Theoretically, the only possibilities are a refurn to the center-left or a historic compromise formula (given the present relationship of forces, it is secondary whether the minor parties are included or not).
Solutions of a one-party government or other possible concoctions would be only variants of the two major
GCR alternatives. If is not possible here to go into the relative probability of this or that solution. But If one recalls the elementary fact that the paralysis that led to the early elections was created because the center-left was exhausted and the Christian Democracy and is allies firmly rejected the historic compromise in all its possible variants, then the imposse that continues to exist after June 20 appears in its full clarity. In the immediate future, this impasse is aggravated by the PSI's confirmation of its opposition to a new version of the center-left (comprehensible in that the PSI does not wish to suffer further losses on its left) and by the attitude of the DC, which, after waging the electoral campaign in a very precise direction, would have enormous difficulties in making a 180 degree turn and accepting the overtures of the PCI (in such an eventuality, there would be possibilities of revolts by some parliamentary groups and even organizational breaks with the party) -The conclusion is that the crisis of leadership of the bourgeoisie has not at all begun to be solved and that the immediate period now opening will continue to be one of strong instability, of persistent internal contradictions in the ruling class front. ... The entire preceding analysis, in addition to the more comprehensive analysis of the post several years, implies that the workers movement may find itself in a situation that is controdictory in certain respects. As far as the state of spirit of the masses is concerned, at least in the short run, the combination of relative disappointment at the fact that the Christian Democracy hung on and consciousness of the increased strength of the major workers parties will have effects. More generally, the pressures of fundamental needs, which in the final analysis can be reduced to the demand for job security and defense of living standards, not only will not be attenuated buf may become even stronger, if the present economic trends continue, In such a context, conditions will exist for new impetuous mass mobilizations with the working class at the center buf capable of drawing in brooder layers of the toiling population. The obstacle to the effective development of such movements, and, even more clearly, to their posifive outcome, will continue to be the difficulty of developing mobilizations of such scope with the advanced objectives dictated by the situation, objectives that tend to be of a transitional nature, in the absence of a leadership determined to relaunch the confrontation and to favor an anticapitalist dynamic of the movement. Even more than in the past, then, the role of the trodeunion and political organizations of the proletariat will be decisive for the very initiation of broad mass movements. New possibilities are opening for the new vanguard and the organizations of the far left, and they will be put to new tests. Objectively, it will be possible to take those steps forward that were not taken during the last campaign around the labor contracts. The possibility of concretely and credibly relaunching struggles for overall polifical objectives will depend in large measure on success on this terrain. El
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